


Janus Opens the Door

by theriacs



Series: Balance the Books [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, I need more Mercy headcanons, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 14:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7226980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriacs/pseuds/theriacs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each loss chipped away a little more at ethics she was willing to bend to save lives. Her moral compass had become unsteady in her pursuit to raise the dead. (<em>To bring people back home to their loved ones</em>, she’d tell herself.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Janus Opens the Door

Dr. Angela “Mercy” Ziegler is renowned for her compassion, her unparalleled work in nanobiotics, her gentle disposition, but none of these define her character so deeply as the conflict to play god on and off the battlefield.

When Mercy lost her parents to the war, the young doctor vehemently refused to accept their senseless deaths. As one who believed in the goodness of people, she’d witnessed too many innocent lives brought to their untimely end by systems beyond individual control. Lives that could have helped society flourish and prosper. Lives with love to give and overcome the hate and fear in the world. So Mercy tried to fix it.

What she could fix, she did. Mercy seized the control that science offered her, and the world made sense again.

The lives she was able to save were successes. The lives she lost were her failures.

Each loss chipped away a little more at ethics she was willing to bend to save lives. Her moral compass had become unsteady in her pursuit to raise the dead. ( _To bring people back home to their loved ones_ , she’d tell herself.)

When Mercy finally found success in her Valkyrie suit, Overwatch’s soldiers were the first to reap the benefits. She dove fearlessly into battle with the single-minded determination to save as many lives as possible, and Overwatch’s morale soared to see a guardian angel on their side. Every soul she reclaimed from the hands of Death was a pointed _“fuck you”_ for stealing her parents away before their time.

But for all the good she meant to do, her technology allowed worse to happen.

It started when she published her research on how to return a soul to a body. An affirmation for both religion and sciences, she thought. Perhaps they could finally work together.

Barely even 30 minutes later, every trace of her paper was obliterated from the digital domain, her laboratory was seized by Overwatch agents, and every material in it confiscated. Including her Valkyrie suit.

At the time, Mercy believed it was because of the widening rift between Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes, that her work was caught in a power struggle between both sides who’d want to possess it. Disheartening as the situation was, Mercy did her best to mitigate conflicts between sides. There was no reason they both couldn’t benefit from it. All she needed was more time, some modifications...the suit could be replicated for more medics to use.

The more she involved herself, the more futile it seemed. Her words fell on deaf ears and was eventually pushed out of missions.

“Classified.” They told her.

It wasn’t until a few months later that she realized the height of corruption Overwatch had reached.

The organization had granted her provisional access to anonymous files of patients they’d been using her Valkyrie suit to treat them with. Despite the research they had from her, they still needed to rely on her knowledge of it, and it was a compromise that Mercy thought she could live with as long as her work was still saving lives.

Then she noticed a pattern in the patient files. Injuries consistent with aggressive interrogation techniques. _Torture_.

The chill that ran up her spine would be one that she’d never forget.

First was shock. Disbelief. Denial. **Anger**.

How dare they? How dare they take her work and...and **_defile_ ** it?!

To torture and raise an individual only to torture them again?!

The young doctor’s righteous fury burned a path through the ranks of Overwatch until she found the evidence she was looking for.

Gabriel Reyes--bleeding, disfigured, and filled to the brim with more nanobots than humanly possible.

She barely heard the words “treason” and “justified” as she came face to face with her own hubris. The road to hell was certainly paved with good intentions, now wasn’t it?

Mercy had given humanity god-like powers, and the natural order of things demanded balance in the form of the **Reaper**.

When Reyes escaped and Overwatch disbanded, Mercy destroyed every last piece of her research and vowed never to let another pilot her Valkyrie suit. That, she couldn’t destroy.

Not yet.

Not when she had mistakes to fix.

Now the question that plagues her mind every night is: **how much good is she really doing?**

**Author's Note:**

> I see Mercy as a character who suffers from many sleepless nights. Not because of the endless work, but because of the ethics of it. Then again, I also see her dancing slowing and singing along to sultry jukebox tunes in white dress shirts too big for her, so what the hell do I know. I need more Mercy headcanons in my life!!
> 
> Side note: I'm using this as a bio for my Mercy Indie RP on tumblr.


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